


It's A Good Life

by Pline



Series: Where Freedom Lies [2]
Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Danny-centric, Discussion of Death, Established Relationship, M/M, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-20
Updated: 2018-08-20
Packaged: 2019-06-30 08:28:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15748023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pline/pseuds/Pline
Summary: “This is where it stood.”Danny lets the melancholy flood him, lets the memories take him back to that time, very long ago, when he was a King of the Picts.“There’s nothing left of it now,” he says sadly. “I would have liked to show you, Steve it was magnificent. It wouldn’t look like much today, it wasn’t the biggest of castle or even the best fortified, but it was home.”.Danny goes back to where he used to live in his first life. He wants to show Steve everything.(You need to read Memento Mori to understand this).





	It's A Good Life

**Author's Note:**

> I wasn't going to write a follow-up to Memento Mori but I got inspired by a comment so here is the world's shortest fic.

“This is where it stood.”

Danny lets the melancholy flood him, lets the memories take him back to that time, very long ago, when he was a King of the Picts.

“There’s nothing left of it now,” he says sadly. “I would have liked to show you, Steve it was magnificent. It wouldn’t look like much today, it wasn’t the biggest of castle or even the best fortified, but it was home.”

He smiles a strained smile, his eyes are shining bright but he’s not overwhelmed. He’s glad to be back here, with Steve, and be able to show him even just the hills of where he first grew up.

“When was the last time you came back?” Steve asks, curious but not pushing.

“Oh. I tried to come back in my second life but I died before getting there. I did come back in my third life, but there was nothing left already.”

“You’ve never been back after?” Steve sounds surprised.

Danny shrugs, “Well. Never did see the point before.”

“And now?”

“Now I want to show you everything.”

Steve smiles sloppily and it makes his eyes wrinkle and his entire face soften. _What a sap,_ Danny can’t help but think and his heart soars with love.

“I need to tell you something.”

“Something… bad?” Steve asks hesitantly.

Clouds are accumulating in the sky – it will rain soon. Danny is not worried  though, he has always liked the rain.  It’s calming, cleansing.

“No, not bad. Come on. I want to show you something else before it starts raining.”

They walk through the wild  Scottish landscape,  Steve  enthralled  by Danny’s retailing of his old life as  a Pict  and the way his people perceived the world and their beliefs and  traditions.

“This is it.”

“A boulder?” It is a boulder. A big half-buried boulder that’s been smothered by time, but a boulder nonetheless. “Wait, is this where Arthur found Excalibur?”

“Very funny, ha – ha.” Despite the sarcasm of his words, there is softness in his movement as he touches the moss-covered stone.

“Something happened here?”

Danny nods.

“I died here.”

“Oh.”

Danny closes his eyes and it’s like he is back then, he can feel the phantom pain and hear the echo of his soldiers’ screams as he died painfully and slowly in front of them.

“I had been traveling with my men and we were ambushed,” he says, eyes still closed. “We managed to escape but I was hurt in the fight. I thought it was nothing but a bad cut, and we had managed to stop the bleeding. It got infected.”

He opens his eyes and looks up to Steve who is listening intently.

“We were so very close to home, but I died here, on this very rock, so very very close to getting back home.”

Steve takes one step and puts his arms around Danny’s body for him to rest his head on Steve’s heart.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “But I’m glad you can share this now.”

Drest may have never been able to return home but Danny is always home as long as he has the ones he loves with him, especially the tall idiot he calls his lover.

 

* * *

 

They’re back in their tiny hotel room, the storm is raging outside  but they feel sheltered from the rest of the world,  the both of them huddled together on the bed.

Being here, in Scotland, with Steve and being able to share the memories of his past lives means so much to Danny. Being able to love him openly, hiding nothing of his true feelings, has been a real blessing.

They got together after Danny was released from the hospital. He had decided he wouldn’t risk losing everything again. Whether or not he’d die for good next time, he wasn’t taking the chance of having everything taken away from him again.

It finally had learned his lesson.

“You’re alright, babe?”

Danny smiles at Steve’s concerned face.

“Yeah, just thinking. I haven’t told you what I wanted to tell you earlier.”

“You don’t have to say anything you aren’t ready to.”

“I know, I want to though.” He pauses. “I died in this life. As Danny Williams.”

“What?”

“I’ve died so many times before, I knew for sure I was dying. I could see you panicking and I closed my eyes and then I was dead. I know I was.”

Steve’s hold on him gets tighter.

“Something happened,” Danny continues. “I was back here. In the castle, and I was Drest again, but not really. It was strange. I was back to that night – with the druid. It was only us and we talked. He gave me a choice.”

Danny closes his eyes and it’s like he’s back there. He hadn’t realized how much time has distorted his memories of that moment. The druid hadn’t been malevolent, he had just wanted to teach him a lesson in his own trickster way.

“He said I had changed, that I wasn’t the same man I was when I was Drest. He said I could erase it all. Go back to being Drest, and die as Drest, and going to where everyone goes when they pass. But I’d forget everything, all of my lives.”

“And you said no,” Steve says, voice heavy and low.

“And I said no,” Danny repeats. “I didn’t think about it. Everything I lived, even the sorrow of it, it’s not meaningless. The people I loved are still with me now. And you, I couldn’t lose you. I couldn’t lose Grace.”

Steve doesn’t say anything but Danny hears it all anyway. _I love you._

“He said this would be my last life.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. After this, it’s all over, and God, I’m not even sure this wasn’t all a dream but I want to believe it because this life? Is the best I’ve ever had and I know, I’ll never be as happy or as complete as I am now. I never realized I was always searching for something before I found it in this life.”

“And what is that?” Steve asks so very softly, a whisper almost.

“Peace.”

 

* * *

 

Danny Williams lives his full life surrounded by people he loves, doing what he loves. His life is full of joys and surprises and even the hard times cannot break him.

Danny Williams dies at a very old age, surrounded by people he loves, the love of his life’s hand in his hand.

Danny Williams closes his eyes and never opens them again. And neither will any man who bears his memories.

He is free.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked this! Thanks for reading!


End file.
